A Word In Your Ear - July 30, 2015

“That’s how my grandad advised me to meet a girl,” said Mick, now a father-of-two.

“One, get yourself clean; two, learn some steps; three, go to a dance and, when a girl rang all your bells, ask her. It worked, too!”

Not that I was seeking a girl, you understand, but I’d returned from dancing that afternoon and was now chatting. She Who Knows had hurried home, dance shoes in bag and very eager to put up her feet with a cup of tea.

We’d been to a sequence session at St Annes and She Who reckoned we’d done 23 dances.

That’s as many as we knew and, if I’d a number on my back, my score would have been around seven.

My own parents’ first date was at a dance. There was a time when most couples met at ballrooms like the Tower, or Empress, that were bouncing on a Saturday night.

Now most activities for the young are ‘virtual’, which won’t get a red-blooded lad far.

Still, you can learn to dance on the internet. That’s where we found our steps. Just Google a dance and videos pop up.

Like those championships in Blackpool, it’s a worldwide phenomenon.

There are Japanese couples waltzing in Australia and Red Indians, sorry, native Americans,barn dancing in the Mid-West.

Most men hang up their dancing shoes once they’ve got a girl, but it’s all-round exercise and fun (at least, if remembering your steps).

“You should try it again!” I told Mick.

“Maybe, when I retire,” he said. Well, he does have a family and job to run.

“We did okay,” I said modestly, upon returning to Edmonds Towers.

“Better than feared,” She Who Knows agreed, “I’ve had nightmares about our latest foxtrot.”

Even Mick’s grandad would have been impressed.

To think, after so many years, that girl who rang all those bells was still dreaming of me!